Posted on 07/22/2007 7:40:38 PM PDT by xzins
At first blush it can certainly appear that way. But that is only because of applying human standards to what is "hate" or what is a "tyrant". If I tell God in a prayer that I hated sin, would you say that I have sinned by hating? I wouldn't think that I had sinned. In addition, I don't think that one can say that the OT only shows a God of vengeance, etc., and the the NT only shows a God of love by human standards. The OT has plenty showing God's love for us (Genesis, Exodus, Jeremiah, Psalms, etc.). There are tons of examples. Likewise, God kills at least three people in the NT.
And what was God doing for 1700 or so years by hiding His real identity from the vast majority of the Jews? Playing games with them? If God would desire all men to be saved then why would He keep all these people for centuries in darkness? Because He so loves the world?
Neither of us can have any idea how many of the OT Jews were saved. But I would disagree that God was hiding His identity. He was all over the place in the OT speaking directly with people. As far as the Christ that we know, they were looking forward to Him, that is, those who just went by the scriptures were looking forward to Him. You are right that many translated the scriptures into some other Christ that they were expecting. God gave eyes to see and ears to hear to those He chose, and they waited for the correct Christ.
Oh yeah? By attributing to God all the death and destruction? That seems to be the characteristic of three groups so far: the OT Jews, fundamentalist Christians and Muslims. Whatever they do, they did/do because supposedly God "orders" them to do these things! So, when the Islamic thugs bomb an Israeli pizza parlor they are doing "God's work..."
We know that the Islamic God is not the Christian God, so it is a false god by definition. We don't need to go any further. But if you say that the Christian God did not order what He ordered in the OT, then the OT is lost. There is too much material that would have to be tossed in order to save the Testament.
In other words, it's either an excuse or insanity in their heads. It's not the God of the Gospels, not the Christian God, for sure.
Why do you say it can't be the same God? Because love doesn't kill? If so, then I would ask you if love allows a loved one to kill himself, even if one could have prevented it with the slightest effort. You would have to say "yes". So, "love" is a little more complicated than the pretty bow we all like to tie on it. :) And again, if the OT authors were making excuses or were "insane" then the OT is lost.
And WHO misguided [OT Jews] according to your theology? Is it not God? Is it not God who predestined them from before foundations of the world to be misguided?
We both know that the OT Jews, that is, the masses in general, were on a yo-yo string throughout the OT. God revealed His power to them, then they believed, then they fell away, then God showed His power again, then they believed again, then they fell away again, and on and on and on. For His own reasons, God obviously chose not to sustain their belief corporately for extended periods of time. Of course, everyone from Jesus' time forward has learned from that because we see ourselves. It is so easy for us to look back at them and laugh, saying "what were they thinking?". But then we look in the mirror and stop laughing. :)
I DO know that, and the Reformed do not think that God delights in suffering.
First none of us knows what God's Justice is. Second, I will let you in on a little secret: life is the way it is even if you don't understand it.
Well, you claim to know what it is not. I claim to know what part of it includes (what we are told in scriptures). So, we both claim to know "something".
YET, I have never seen a comprehensive, verse-by-verse reconciliation between the two Testaments from ANY Church author. Probably because there ISN'T one comprehensive reconciliation POSSIBLE other than the realization that the OT was "seen dimly" at first and is not the full revelation. So, the right approach to the OT is with a grain of salt rather than in the literal sense.
I appreciate your candor, and I am reduced to being spiritually unable to take large portions of God's Holy word with a grain of salt. As you said earlier "life is the way it is even if you don't understand it." I agree with you. That forces me to deal with how the OT sounds, regardless of the apparent contradictions. If God's word is God's word, then there must be a reconciliation. I believe the Reformed have found it. The OT and NT give different viewpoints of the same God. They are both true.
Show me where Jesus directs His ministry to the Gentiles and I will show you where He doesn't. By your logic, the Reformed ought to be Jewish.
The Reformed ARE "Jews" in the sense that Paul used. :) I've seen other posters give you several examples of where Jesus directs His ministry to the Gentiles, not the least of which is the Great Commission. Let us say that I did not find your response to be "persuasive". :)
That was the funniest thing I have seen here. That was great!
So instead of "BINGO", we now spell "SAVED". Oh Boy, how many cards do I get???
Regards
No, this "god" delights in making humans to condemn them to eternal torture. He "ordained" them to sin, judging them as condemned, despite being made that way.
I appreciate your candor, and I am reduced to being spiritually unable to take large portions of God's Holy word with a grain of salt. As you said earlier "life is the way it is even if you don't understand it."
Read the Old Testament through the lenses of Jesus Christ, since Tradition points out that it was written with Him in mind. Oh, and Jesus says that in the Gospels, as well.
I've seen other posters give you several examples of where Jesus directs His ministry to the Gentiles, not the least of which is the Great Commission. Let us say that I did not find your response to be "persuasive". :)
That is after the Resurrection, when He directs the Catholic Church to spread the Gospel.
Regards
Thank you ever so much for pointing this contradiction out. If God preordains everything, then He causes everything. This passage says that He is not the author of sin; yet He is the author of all life and their actions. This is nonsense.
I understand that you disagree with it, but there is no contradiction and it is internally consistent. The WCF recognizes the concept of primary and secondary causes. Therefore, when God ordains sins it does not mean He is the cause of them. The actor is the secondary cause and is consequently responsible, since he chose to sin. God just didn't prevent it, although He could have. Imagine if I was walking past a park and noticed some little kid swinging too high on the swing set. I just observe. Then, the kid falls and gets hurt. You would blame me because I didn't run in and tell the kid to get down. Your blaming of me wouldn't be right or just. I had no duty to step in.
Here is the section in the WCF illustrating this:
[Chapter 5] Of Providence. I. God, the great Creator of all things, doth uphold, direct dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.
II. Although in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly, yet, by the same providence, he ordereth them to fall out according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.
III. God, in his ordinary providence, maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at his pleasure.
IV. The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God, so far manifest themselves in his providence, that it extendeth itself even to the first Fall, and all other sins of angels and men, and that not by a bare permission, but such as hath joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering and governing of them, in a manifold dispensation, to his own holy ends; yet so, as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God; who being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin.
V. The most wise, righteous, and gracious God, doth oftentimes leave for a season his own children to manifold temptations and the corruption of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled; and to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for sundry other just and holy ends.
VI. As for those wicked and ungodly men whom God, as a righteous judge, for former sins, doth blind and harden; from them he not only withholdeth his grace, whereby they might have been enlightened in their understandings, and wrought upon their hearts; but sometimes also withdraweth the gifts which they had; and exposeth them to such objects as their corruption makes occasion of sin; and withal, gives them over to their own lusts, the temptatoins of the world, and the power of Satan; whereby it comes to pass that they harden themselves, even under those means which God useth for the softening of others.
VII. As the providence of God doth, in general, reach to all creatures, so, after a most special manner, it taketh care of his Church, and disposeth all things to the good thereof.
Hope this helps. :)
If I wind up a toy and position it so that it rolls over the edge of the table, then I am responsible, not the toy.
But the toy has no will at all. People certainly do. Many times, God just leaves people to their own wills. That's what makes them, and not God, responsible.
A second interpretation comes to mind of this passage: God has set the stage and foreordained everything, so under a legalistic frame of mind, God merely has set everything up so that it cannot fail to do His will; the robots go through the motions so technically, He is not the author of sin; He is only the author of those who do sin.
Except for the robot part, that's actually not bad. :)
So,correct me if I'm wrong? God creates a person that He will never give an opportunity for Salvation?
He just leaves them alone from conception and they eventually end up in Hell through no fault of God ?
No matter how you dice this up,God would still be the one who created this person and still responsible for creating a person with NO chance of Salvation
This would be God giving human sacrifice to the devil in my mind.
Thanks.
I am still a little fuzzy on the idea that one can simply look at a Bible and somehow determine that it is accurate or not. Or is it the tradition of growing up with KJV and comparing Bibles with that standard? What would set the Joseph Smith Bible apart from the KJV in your eyes?
I agree with you (if you're saying) that accepted tradition has to play a major part. And I'm sure that a lot of it on my side does go back to the KJV. I've never read through the Joseph Smith Bible, but I would think it would be easy to discern as false since, as I understand it, it doesn't teach the identity of Christ as you and I agree upon. So, if I was stuck on a plane or something and felt like reading the Bible, and there were two copies in front of me, one being the NAB and the other the Joseph Smith Bible, I wouldn't think twice about reading the NAB, but I wouldn't touch the Joseph Smith Bible if it was the only one there.
I have "read" some of the NAB by the fact that it has been quoted to me thousands of times here on FR. It is the rarest of occasions that I cry foul on the wording.
WOW Mark, and I just got done saying the NAB was OK. :) Famous last words. So we have first installment verses guarantee. Interesting. However, I think I can see where first installment comes from. Here is what Strong's says:
[for the KJV word "earnest"] NT:728 arrhabon (ar-hrab-ohn'); of Hebrew origin [OT:6162]; a pledge, i.e. part of the purchase-money or property given in advance as security for the rest: KJV - earnest.
I think "first installment" is reasonable from this. However, notice that there is a pledge. I think the Church is in error because it must think that the pledge is made by man, so it can be broken (as you said), when in fact it is clear that the pledge is made by God. (We were marked by God with the pledge in the form of the Spirit.) While man is a welcher, God is not. God's pledge is gold, so this is as good as a guarantee.
No they don't. Otherwise, it would not be necessary to crush man so as to glorify God. If the WCF recognized what Augustine taught, they would accept that God is sovereign AND man has free will. They would understand that God is entirely responsible for man's salvation, and man is responsible to respond to God by obedience and faith. These concepts are beyond the Reformer. They understand God and man as a team of mules pulling a load. If one contributes to the pulling, the other contributes less by a proportionate amount. They cannot understand that God gives man graces SO THAT man can be lifted up and BECOME righteous. Divinization is totally foreign to the Reformed mindset.
Therefore, when God ordains sins it does not mean He is the cause of them. The actor is the secondary cause and is consequently responsible, since he chose to sin. God just didn't prevent it, although He could have.
Again, that is not the definition you gave me earlier. You told me that "God ordains is that which God sets into God's plan", #8936. Thus, since God actively is setting or ordaining man's sin, and everything that I do is because of God's plan, then it follows that according to you, God actively plans that man actually sin.
How is it that God ordains everything, but doesn't ordain sin, WHEN, according to reformed theology, that is ALL MEN CAN DO!!! There is NOTHING GOOD that men can do. Men must NOT be able to do ANYTHING of value, even when lifted up by God, since it would "lower God". Thus, the reformer is stuck between a dilemna that he continuously denies: Either man is responsible for sin, or God is responsible for sin. Either man is judged for his actions, or God is judged for creating a man who could NOT respond in any other way, EVEN WITH the transforming power of the Holy Spirit who creates a new man!
But the toy has no will at all. People certainly do. Many times, God just leaves people to their own wills. That's what makes them, and not God, responsible.
What sort of will does man possess if he can ONLY be evil? Even good deeds are credited entirely to God because man must be annihilated to maintain God's sovereignty. Yet, the WCF 'understands secondary and primary causes'????
Again, this philosophical view that places God in the empirical world, this Nominalism, is at the heart of the Protestant heresy. In their correct view of maintaining God's sovereignty, they destroy man as God's greatest creation, setting man against God in such a way that even with the quickening of the Spirit, as discussed in Romans 8, man STILL is worthless, a dung-heap covered in Christ's righteousness. As such, the positive theology of reform is destroyed by the overemphasis on an article of the faith, a faith that absolutely RELIES on the fact that "theology" is the study of God, a transcendant Being. By over-rationalizing the faith, by following corrupted Scholasticism to its logical conclusion, Protestantism commits an even greater error than it set out to correct in the first place.
What is sad is that there are people who still cannot fathom that God desires all men to be saved. That all men are not saved is avoiding the question. WHY they are not all saved is the correct approach and might give some reformers a new look at their faulty theology...Who can call themselves Christian and consider that God creates men to be damned - while simultaneously desiring all men to be saved??? This is the logical double-speak of reformed theology.
Regards
And what's the implication? By this logic, those who are the closest to the light should be burned, because heat is inversely proportional to the distance.
But we know that this is not "our" kind of heat, for those who are the closest to God are the ones who are saved, and those who are the farthest are the ones who are "burned."
For our God [is] a consuming fire. – Hebrews 12:29
God is Love and Love doesn't change into hate. Rather those who love God are consumed by this Love, while those who hate Him experience that love as burning pain. There is nothing that burns as much as when those we hate return love.
Reading the Bible literally leads one to bizarre conclusions that God is somehow love and hate and a literal burning fire.
As any as you can come up with that PROVES your statement (literally) that "man will never will himself to love God."
Jer. 10:23, “O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.”
This does NOT prove that "Man would NEVER will himself to love God" (Athena1's weeping generalization).
“Imagine if I was walking past a park and noticed some little kid swinging too high on the swing set. I just observe. Then, the kid falls and gets hurt. You would blame me because I didn’t run in and tell the kid to get down. Your blaming of me wouldn’t be right or just. I had no duty to step in.”
Actually I would. There are many Good Samaritan laws in this country. They simply reflect the exhortation of Our Lord to take responsibility for others beyond your immediate comfort zone. There are sins of commission and of omission. Remember the Beatitudes. You are commanded to help others. I understand that some here think that the Sermon on the Mount (or the Plain) are suggestions or ‘ideas’ but I would differ with them.
They are commands to us with no lesser import than those in Deuteronomy or Leviticus.
God ordained all. God created all. God made all. Therefore if there is no ability for man to do otherwise, then God is responsible. The toy may have the ability to look left and right or flash lights, but if that windup toy has to go forward off the edge, then I am responsible for that toy going off the edge. Not the toy.
If I leave a 3 year old with matches alone in a room, then I am responsible for the resulting fire, not the 3 year old.
If God is the author of those who can commit only sin, then He is responsible for the sins. No matter how much squirming we do. If God ordains, then it is. No matter how much will we have or choose to exercise.
“This does NOT prove that “Man would NEVER will himself to love God”
Obviously it does not since the quote is from scripture and as everyone knows, that is not reliable since it is only God’s word and not the “church’s”.
By the way, where does the church derrive its warrant if not from the scripture? If it is from God through “oral tradition”, liturgy, hermits and monks, since that was passed from one ear to another, isn’t it just as unreliable as the written word copied by scribes?
Sure, my altar call is a tradition of men, since it isn't explicitly scriptural.
What reasons do you have to trust these men? Do you know who they are?
No, I don't know who they were, so I trust others whom I do know. The most common text used in my church is the NIV, and I know my pastor approves of it. I know his teachings (and those of other users) are Biblically sound, so I conclude that the version is acceptable. I also know that other Christian writers whom I trust use it.
Which Anglican branch is represented? One of the branches that are spiraling into self destruction in spectacular form?
I have no idea which Anglican branch, but I know it couldn't be from today's Episcopalians since the NIV was compiled 35 years ago or so.
Did they put the translation of the Bible to a vote? Did they draw lots?
I don't know, but it is reasonable to assume some sort of consensus was reached.
I’m sure that the gender neutral Bible also had many scholars working on it. What sets one apart from the other?
As I said, my opinion is that those Bibles were put together for political purposes, not Godly purposes. Therefore, I have no use for them. They clearly seek to blur the distinctions between men and women. Your Bible and mine (and all previously accepted Bibles) are clear that men and women have different and very important Godly roles. Therefore, those Bibles cannot serve a Godly purpose. They are Bibles BY liberals, for liberals, and any other unsuspecting Christians they can suck in. They are unholy.
Sir, I must despair of you, since you are reasonable, sound, somewhat objective and erudite.
One of the objections against Catholicism that I often hear is the accusation that the clergy are responsible for the beliefs and not the laity. Is that the condition that you would apply to your acceptance of the NIV? How would you convince me that your pastor is Biblically sound?
Today’s Episcopagans had their roots deep into the spiritual soil 35 years ago. 1972 was hippies, drugs, free love, revolution theology and renouncing of authority. It has really shaken the Catholic Church; however it has presented itself as the greatest opportunity in a century to clean up the stables.
I read your posts, think about your reasoning, hear the straightforwardness in your presentations, and understand the genuineness of your argument. What a great Catholic you’d make, once we sheared the Calvinistic wool from your eyes.
“God is Love and Love doesn’t change into hate. Rather those who love God are consumed by this Love, while those who hate Him experience that love as burning pain. There is nothing that burns as much as when those we hate return love”
Indeed!
“I say that those who are suffering in hell, are suffering in being scourged by love.... It is totally false to think that the sinners in hell are deprived of God’s love. Love is a child of the knowledge of truth, and is unquestionably given commonly to all. But love’s power acts in two ways: it torments sinners, while at the same time it delights those who have lived in accord with it” +Isaac the Syrian
“...the sword of fire was placed at the gate of paradise to guard the approach to the tree of life; it was terrible and burning toward infidels, but kindly accessible toward the faithful, bringing to them the light of day.” +Basil the Great
LOL FK, do you REALLY hate sin? If you really hate sin then you must not sin because you avoid it like—well, sin! Is it really in us to hate sin?
He was all over the place in the OT speaking directly with people
Indeed, Exodus 33:11 says that God spoke to Moses "face to face!" And Deuteronomy 34:10 reiterates the same claim.
In Gen 12:7 God appears before Abraham, and again in Gen 17:1 and 18:1. God appears before people in Gen 26:2, 26:4, 32:30, 35:9, 48:3, Exodus 3:16, 6:3, 24:9-11, Num 14:14, Deut 5:4, 34:10, Jug 13:22, 1 King 22:19, Job 42:5, Isa 6:1, Eze 1:27, Amos 9:1, and Habakkuk 3:3-5. [all OT]
Yet Exodus 33:20 says "There shall no man see me, and live." This is reiterated by John 1:18 "No man hath seen God at any time." Or 1 Timothy 1:17 "Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible..." or 1 Timothy 6:16 "Whom no man hath seen nor can see" and John repeates himself when he says "No man hath seen God at any time" [1 John 4:12]
Here the only "fluke" is Exodis 33:20; the rest are all NT verses! What gives, FK? Did God appear to OT Jews but revealed to the NT Jews that no one has veer seen Him or could see Him and live?
Neither of us can have any idea how many of the OT Jews were saved
Of course we do: none! No one was saved before Chirst came to save the world. There was no salvation for anyone before Chirst.
We both know that the OT Jews, that is, the masses in general, were on a yo-yo string throughout the OT
But it's God in the Reformed theology who either opens or shuts ones eyes. If the OT Jews went back and forth in their idolatry, WHO ordained that? If the Pharisees cold not recognize Him WHO caused them to no see Him (to this day in fact!)?
Here is the first one: Matthew 4:4 Wisdom 16:26. Let's take a look:
Matt 4:4 : Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"
Wisdom 16:26 : That thy children, O Lord, whom thou lovest, might know, that it is not the growing of fruits that nourisheth man: but that it is thy word, which preserveth them that put their trust in thee.
Now, let's see the non-Deuterocanonical OT reference:
Deut 8:3 : He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
So, your references are clearly not exclusive. Plus, we know that the hierarchy of the Church did not formally recognize the Apocrypha as inspired the way they did recognize the correct 66 books of the Bible until more than 1,000 years later. And that was only as a measure of spite against the Reformers. Frankly, the Apocrypha really aren't a big deal to me. I don't read them, you guys don't quote them, so we all get along fine. :)
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